Stranded on an Island
by iseefireandrain
Summary: When Liz boards Red's jet to go on the run with him, it crashes. They find themselves stuck on a deserted island together, wounded and surrounded by water, where they have no choice but to rely on each other to find resources. Stuck on an island together and battling all types of sordid conditions, feelings start to evolve.
1. Chapter 1

**Firstly I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. Just a huge fan.**

 **Sorry for writing another story. I got this idea while watching the movie Six Days Seven Nights, with Harrison Ford in it, and it sort of grew from there, but with Red and Liz. Not sure if anyone would like it, but if your interested in more, I'd love to know :)**

 **Basically Red and Liz get stranded on an island, where Red and Liz will go all survivalist and naturally, feelings and tensions start to develop between them when Liz realizes how artful Red is at adapting to any given situation. I will try to update two times a week if I have the time hopefully.**

 **There will be Somali pirates, mosquitoes, and other problems in the mix that will truly test them. So I hope you enjoy it as it unfolds :)**

* * *

 _ **Stranded On An Island**_

There's a long peaceful silence that falls between them, as the car continues to move.

Liz's head remains leaning on Red's shoulder, her eyes closed tight. Surprisingly, she feels at ease. Comfortable, with her cheek and the side of her face resting against the soft fabric of Red's jacket, so much so that she starts to feel sleepy. She feels the car glide on and on, to whichever destination they are going to, and after a while, Liz forces her eyes open. Her eyes feel grainy and heavy as she pushes her head up and away from Red's shoulder, her eyes taking curious inventory of their surroundings.

She stifles a yawn as her eyes narrow at their surroundings through the tinted window.

They have arrived at a large stretch of runway, Reddington's own personal jet waiting for them. It truly sinks into Liz then that it is really happening; that she is really going off with Red, far, far away from the FBI.

A new life was waiting, where she was literally running away. Tom, her days as a profiler- it would all be left in the past now, all due to one action in killing the Attorney General of the United States. She turns to glance at Reddington nervously, not quite understanding. "We're taking your jet out of the States?" she asks softly.

Red nods once, his eyes on anywhere else but her. "Yes. I believed that would be safest of all."

Liz doesn't bother disagreeing with him; As Red unfastens his seat-belt and climbs out of the car, crossing over to her side, Liz quickly unfastens hers while letting him hold the door open for her. She appreciates his chivalry more than she probably should, then. She climbs out of the car carefully, inspecting the sky. It looks reasonably overcast and cloudy, and, for a second there, she almost doubts whether it is safe for them to be flying in such miserable weather. But she trusts Reddington, now more than ever. She decides she'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The pilot greets them pleasantly, shaking their hands while Reddington tells her some mischievous cock-and-bull story about how on one flight, he had finally learned the meaning of the mile high club with the air hostess. Gripping the handles on each side of the small stairs tightly with her hands, she starts climbing up, her shoes plonking loudly on each plank. She begins to feel slightly anxious and uneasy when she reaches the rear door to enter the jet. There's always something about airplanes that she hasn't been very fond of, especially when the turbulence shakes the aircraft around. The possibility of a crash, unlikely as it may be.

She hears Red's footsteps close behind her as he climbs up the stairs as well and quickly, she pushes her anxiety aside and continues on forward to the spacious insides of the jet. Red is nothing if not a man that indulges in luxury and, naturally, the jet is every bit luxurious. From the reclining seats that are widely spaced apart for maximum comfort and leg room, to the windows that are wide enough that you could see everything while you flew high in the air. Considering the strange feeling that is overtaking Liz right now, this strange feeling of impending doom; she wasn't so sure looking out the windows while being airborne was a very good idea at that moment in time.

She hurries into the closest seat she finds, immediately strapping herself in. She focuses on breathing in-and-out of her nostrils deeply while she watches Reddington sit across from her, crossing his right leg over his left knee while removing his hat to place it on the hook near the seat. He appears unfairly calm and composed, which makes Liz feel envious. It isn't like she hasn't flown in a plane before, for goodness sake; She has done it many times, in fact, when her job required her to. She has been in Red's jet before, so why was she getting so antsy?

"You're looking a little green, Lizzie," she hears Red remark, and when she focuses her eyes onto his face more clearly, he's observing her, his head tilted slightly to the side. "There's no need to worry. I've known the pilot, Gregor, for years. He-"

"-I'm fine," she cuts him off dismissively, while her hands move to the vinyl armrests on each side of the seat.

Her fingers clamp down into the fabric in a death-grip. She wouldn't dare admit to Reddington how anxious she is suddenly feeling, how... determined that something bad was inevitably about to happen, once they took off and were up in the air.

She can only stare at Reddington with a slight lift to her eyebrows when he unstraps himself and, of all things, stands to change over to the seat directly beside her. As he sits and makes himself comfortable while strapping himself back in with the belt around his waist, Liz notices that his head is directly in the way of the window. The likelihood of her actually seeing outside is next to nil now. She finds herself breathing a little easier then.

"Not to worry," Red goes on, and she finds herself immediately irritated as all hell over his attempts to reassure her. She lets her eyes flit over to meet the side of his face; He's staring out of the window like a fearless man with no concerns in the world, gnawing the inside of his cheek. "Once its safe to remove our seat-belts, the cart will come in and we can have a few indulgent stiff drinks, Lizzie. Alcohol will undoubtedly take that edge off."

"I'm not afraid of flying," she says just below a whisper, pressing the rear of her head into the headrest. "I just... I have this... weird feeling that something bad is going to happen."

Red sighs loudly. "Well, it's been one hell of a day," he says wearily.

Hardly a minute later, the pilot is in the cockpit and he is turning the jet on, the engine making her seat vibrate. Liz closes her eyes again, breathing in and out of her mouth slowly, trying to keep her breathing calm and regular. Her body is still, stiff, and rigid in her seat. The adrenaline races through her body and she feels the dread build deep inside her as she brings her eyes open again when the pilot warns them through the speakers to remain in their seat-belts until they have successfully taken off.

This is the part she hates the most, whenever on a plane. The part where it takes off.

Her mouth goes dry when the plane starts moving, and she feels her stomach drop when the speed increases, faster and faster. A terrible thrill runs up and down her spine and she hardly feels it when Red's hand presses over hers from where hers sits gripping the armrest. He's trying to calm her down, relax her by giving her hand a squeeze, and Liz can't deny it certainly has a somewhat calming influence on her; Red's gesture.

Lifting her hand up over the arm rest, her palm face up, she lets Red intertwine his fingers through hers, giving her hand a tighter squeeze, and then that dreadful feeling returns again; That horrible feeling in her gut, like her insides have jumped around in her stomach while the jet has taken flight.

Then the seat-belt sign goes off and Liz lets a collective sigh of relief escape her lips as she moves into shaky action in unfastening her seat-belt, while Red does the same, his hand and fingers still tightly intertwined with hers. He only lets her hand go when, as promised, a blonde, thirty-something, female flight attendant with her bust hanging out of her uniform appears, dragging a cart along with her. Her smile brightens at Reddington when he graciously hops up from his seat to kiss her on both sides of her cheek and Liz feels a strange bitterness in her chest at the lack of attention Reddington is giving her now that another woman is in his presence.

The female attendant says something to him that Liz can't seem to hear- her ears feel as if they are popping- and Red's charming the pants off of her, obviously. A tray is sat between Liz's legs and then a glass of ice and yellow liquor that smells pungent is presented to her on it with a flourish, one of the many perks of being on a jet.

"What is this?" she asks Red, as finally the female flight attendant disappears off with her cart.

"Some strange concoction of both gin and vodka," Red informs her, sitting back down himself with a glass of his own in his hand. He swirls the ice and liquor around with a flick of his hand, eyeing the contents curiously before taking a sip. He cringes. "It tastes dreadful, but at least it'll take the nervous edge off," he says, mostly for her benefit.

"Right." Bracing herself, Liz purses her lips over the rim of the glass, squeezes her eyes shut, and gulps it all down in two mouthfuls. She almost chokes with how strong and bitter the taste is, but Red's right; It's better than nothing. It'll have to do.

Liz's almost knocked back in the seat forcefully, when a sudden lurch of the airplane makes it tremble and rock to the side suddenly. She feels herself tense up again as she watches the ice in her empty glass shake.

"What's going on?" she asks Red worriedly.

"I'm not sure. It's probably most likely turbulence. Gregor would tell me if its anything serious to worry about. We're fine, Lizzie."

Liz is anything but convinced when, suddenly, another unusual shake comes. "Still think its turbulence now, Reddington?" she asks him, and another jerk makes her glass slip from her fingers and smash against the floor by her seat loudly, ice spilling and melting over the floor. "God, surely it can't be just that."

Then the voice is broadcast around the plane again, from the pilot, Gregor. He sounds urgent. "Sorry about that, Mr Reddington and Miss Keen. We are just experiencing heavy winds at this hour of the day. It's nothing to worry about. Please make use of-"

The speakers cut off and startling Liz, the oxygen masks fall down from a compartment in the ceiling. The lights flicker off and then back on again from inside the plane with a funny buzzing noise. Another vicious tremble hits the aircraft and without even knowing why she's doing it, she glances over at Reddington for reassurance. What she sees there, does not reassure her in the slightest. Red looks disturbingly pale, a gleam of sweat beading across his forehead and around his receding hairline.

Though he doesn't look overly panicked, the corner of his lip twitches as he reaches over towards her, strapping Liz back in securely to the seat with his hands pulling it so tight, she can feel the buckle cutting into her stomach. Then he does the same to himself quickly, putting his dexterous fingers to good use. He reaches up, pulling Liz's oxygen mask towards her and she tries to suck in a deep, steadying breath before slipping it over her nose and mouth, the elastic band around her scalp pulling at the strands of her hair painfully. Since Red's head is no longer obstructing her vision of the window, she sees the wing of the plane rollicking back and forth.

They were dropping lower and lower, at hazardous speeds.

Then it happens. A strange smell of burning machinery emits from around the inside of the jet and there's a sudden bang, resembling a car backfiring, or a mild explosion.

Instinctively, Liz cinches her seat-belt tighter while she watches Red fearfully while he covers his nose and mouth with his very own oxygen mask as well. Her mask does its job in facilitating her breathing and she sucks in greedily through both her nose and mouth. Sickening vertiginous sensations. Red's eyes meet hers- she sees a frightening amount of wide apprehension in them- and its enough to make her go off the edge into complete hysterics. Now, she realizes, that she ought to have trusted her gut instinct. She had felt that something bad was impending on them, some intuition. And she was right.

The jet is going to crash. And there is a high likelihood of both her and Reddington not surviving this.

Quicker than a blink, a sensation of falling vertically hits Liz and she finds Reddington's hand, clinging it for dear life as if he's a superhero that can possibly save her from any of this and spare her a sudden death, as the sensation of them plunging down drives on and on. His dry hand and warm fingers return her squeeze just as firmly and she lets her eyes close, thinking, _This is it. This is truly it. We're done for._

They are heading downwards for a small island. Straight for a group of trees.

Then they collided into them, and it feels like the worst wreck imaginable. There's another earsplitting banging noise, and the jet bounces and skids over, rolling on the side. She thanks Red internally then for his quick thinking, his pro-activeness despite the sudden emergency, and him taking immediate action by strapping her in; She feels her body wanting to fall, to go sideways. The tray on her lap flings off, disappearing. Then a sudden staggering pain comes when the hard plastic tray returns to hit her brutally, thwacking the bridge of her nose. Next thing she knows, she is conking out, her vision going black.

* * *

The first thing she hears when she comes to is heavy, labored breathing beside her. And waves. Water. An ocean. Waves lapping up and down. A shore. A stab of pain hits the side of her face and she winces, resisting the urge to reopen her eyes. Her nose feels all clogged and runny. Her face feels wet, incredibly tender. The ground beneath her is soft, grainy. Sand. She's on a beach, but why? And with whom? Was it a dream? Is she dead, with this being her own version of heaven?

Then reality slowly sinks in, when her head is being carefully lifted high by someone's hand. Folded cloth is slipped behind her skull and the breathing she hears from someone grows even louder and more uncontrolled.

"Lizzie?" Suddenly she hears Reddington's voice, coming from far away in the distance. She hears him sigh loudly and another stab of pain hits her brutally when she feels his fingers touching her, moving her fringe away from her face carefully. Her hair seems to want to stick to her, like her skin is made of adhesive. Why on earth is she so wet, so tender? "Lizzie, I need you to wake up."

Despite her bodies protests, she forces her eyes open, squinting at the bright sun that glares in her eyes. Her vision spots then clears, and then, there he is, Reddington, crouching over her. He scans her face anxiously with a relieved smile- though she is unsure why- and she feels a deep frown settle on her mouth when she spots the blood around his mouth, around the side of his forehead. He had removed his jacket somewhere along the line, his business shirt so blindingly white in the sun that it hurts her eyes. His sleeves are rolled up to his forearms and, as she focuses on them, even his arms and knuckles are scratched and bloody. He's hurt, and he's bleeding, yet he hardly seems concerned about his own state or well-being in the slightest.

Her mouth goes dry and she parts her lips, trying to form his name with them to speak it aloud, only her voice isn't cooperating with her. Tears gather in her eyes helplessly and she swallows against a heavy lump in her throat. Using her hands instead, she reaches up towards him, her arms stiff, extraordinarily heavy.

"How badly are you hurt, sweetheart?" he asks her, his voice so gentle that it makes her want to burst out crying. "Are you in any pain?"

"No, I... I'm just... sore," she gets out at last, her voice scratchy. "Nothing life-threatening, I don't think. What... what happened?"

Reddington leans back against the sand on the balls of his ankles, moving so that she can see what's behind him. She feels all the air abruptly leave her lungs. The jet, Reddington's personal jet, is hanging lopsided among a few trees that are just barely supporting its weight, half a meter in the air. The right wing has broken off completely. Smoke wafts from the cracked tail. It wasn't a nightmare. They had actually crashed, indeed.

"Oh, my God, Red," she whispers out uneasily. "The... the plane. We crashed. Red, where the hell are we?"

She watches Red's face through blurry eyes as he looks around them, his lips parted, showing his teeth in a hesitant grimace. Even for Reddington, that can't possibly be a very good sign. When he finally peers back down at her, the worry is there for her to hear, in his tone, "I'm not sure about our location just yet. We're surrounded by the sea and water. Palm trees. That is as far as I know, Lizzie."

"And the pilot, Gregor? That... the flight attendant?"

Red's voice is strained and uneven as he squints down at her, inspecting her body and her injuries as a way to avoid looking her directly in the eye. She sees the muscle of his cheek give off its twitch. "Dead. Gregor and Thalia are dead. There is no one else here but us, not that I can see." Reaching to her, he slips his hand under the middle of her back, getting to his knees. "Are you able to stand or would the pain become too excruciating?"

"I'm not sure. I won't know until I try."

"Then try." His hand is alarmingly warm, burning through the thin fabric of her shirt, as she lifts up with her legs under his straining, trembling support. He takes her hand in one of his that are wet with his own blood, slipping her arm over his shoulder so that she can lean on him and use his body as leverage to stand. She manages to stand, but there's a pain in her left ankle and her head still feels strangely wet. The nose area particularly. Her nose is tingling, throbbing dully.

The soft whimper of pain Reddington gives out tells her he is more hurt than he is letting on, that he is putting on a brave face for her. Clutching the fabric of his ruined Egyptian cotton shirt into a ball with her hand so she doesn't fall, she looks away from Red for a moment, using her upright position to her advantage to scrutinize their surroundings and to get a general feel of the current tribulations they were now dealing with. Ever since Reddington came into her life, Liz has learnt to deal with a lot of things; Her ex-husbands deception, catching dangerous criminals on a daily basis. Somehow all that training and experience has never prepared her for something like this. How are they meant to get out of this alive? What nifty tricks will Red have up his sleeves now? A new wave of panic comes crushing down on her and she shifts around carefully on each ankle, looking every which way.

Aside from the plane and the trees intersected around them, there's nothing else.

Palm trees. Sand and water that seems to stretch on endlessly for miles and miles.

Stranded. They were stranded on a beach island. Her and Reddington.

 **And so it begins. :) Please let me know what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

_**First of all, I still own nothing to do with TBL nor am I making any profit out of this. I'm just a huge fan.**_

 _ **Thank you guys so much for being so awesome. Hope you enjoy this one. Cheers!**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter Two**_

Already, Liz can feel the sweat beading on her brow.

They had been standing around for barely fifteen minutes after she had woken up, with Red supporting her weight the best he could, despite being hurt from the crash himself, and already, she feels hot and exhausted.

The air around them becomes increasingly humid and stifling; her clothes starting to feel damp from sweat. Reaching out carefully with her hands to lessen the impact somehow, she sinks down to the sand, her knees already feeling weak. She takes in a few deep breaths while lifting her eyes up to Reddington, who peers around them. She presses a hand flat against her clammy forehead and holds it there. She's hyperventilating, it feels like. She's losing it. It's been _barely fifteen minutes_ since she woke from being unconscious, processing their current situation, and already, she's losing it.

They were stuck on an island practically in the middle of nowhere, with no supplies; No water or food or any shelter. Just sand, trees, and the ocean surrounding them. And heat. Unbearably hot humidity in the air, suffocating her more and more by the second.

Everything feels sore, all over, as if she has only just been beaten almost to death by someone's fists.

Cautiously, she moves her hand to the bridge of her nose, touching it for a moment before drawing her hand back to look at her fingers. Dried, coagulated blood comes off onto the tips of her fingers. Her nose aches and feels tender to the touch. It can only mean one thing; That damn tray on her lap had hit it roughly enough to either break her nose or to simply just knock it about. She's too afraid to figure out or no less inquire of Reddington which it is.

As for Reddington, he looks also barely recognizable and unlike his usual polished self; His white shirt wrinkled and disorderly, stained with blood. There's what appears to be a small gash on his forehead, coagulated blood dried on it. They are both in as bad a state as the other due to the crash.

She only realizes Red has moved to crouch back down beside her when she sees the ripped material of his pants. She can't seem to endure looking at his face, so instead, she peers at a dried patch of blood on his white shirt instead. She hears him ask, soft with concern, "Are you all right?"

"No. No, I don't think I'm all right." A surge of impatience overcomes her. "How can I _possibly_ be all right? We're stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the ocean surrounding us. We have no food, no water..." She lifts her eyes to search around them again. Sweat trickles down her nose. "We don't even know where we are, do we?"

"This area doesn't seem familiar to me. In fact, nothing about this location does." She lets herself look at his face for a moment, seeing the sweat beading over his brow as well, his upper lip glistening. She isn't the only sweaty one after all. But its the heat. The damn heat. "Now I know this may sound ridiculous to you, given the potentially dire circumstances that we find ourselves in, but you need to try to remain calm, Lizzie."

She scoffs. "Remain calm? We're stuck here in the middle of nowhere and now you're daring to tell me to keep calm right now?" The words come out harsh and loud through her gritted teeth. "For all we know, we could be stuck here for months. We have no food, no supplies. We could die at any minute. Yet, aside from all of this, you still dare to tell me to remain calm?"

"Listen, I don't know about you, but I have full intentions of making sure the both of us get out of this alive." She realizes how much she is pissing him off when she hears the slight irritation in his tone. "There's no point of panicking. Something tells me that we don't have much time for that. Instead of moping around, I think we should move into immediate action." Red stands, not without difficulty. He's got a gait, a limp to his legs. "First things first, we need to find suitable water to drink, Lizzie. It's imperative that we do. After all, we are more likely to die of dehydration out here quicker than starvation," Red continues, in a quick matter-of-fact voice. "We need to find somewhere where there is a bountiful of water. A stream or a... river. The rest- the moping and all of the panicking- can wait for now."

Red's right though, she realizes reluctantly. It's better to talk it out and be proactive, instead of dwelling. She needs to keep her mind distracted and preoccupied for now, even if that means simply by trying to find access to drinkable water, because... if she lets her mind take over, lets herself succumb to the utter helplessness she feels burrowed deep in the pit of her chest at being stranded in the middle of whoop-whoop with him... she'd go truly insane.

On the bright side, at least she isn't stuck completely alone in this situation. She'd truly lose all sanity if there wasn't another human being right there with her, for basic companionship. At least she has that company there, in Reddington, despite how...irritating his company can be at times.

Right there and then, she refuses to let the debilitating panic and dread take over. Instead, she tries to think of solutions herself.

Liz's blue eyes dart to the wreckage of the jet contemplatively, squinting through the harsh rays of the sunlight. She nibbles on her bottom lip with her front teeth; There's bound to be water bottles on the jet. Bottles of water and food. Small snacks to tie them over for a couple of days. Why couldn't they just get their supplies by climbing through the broken crack in the jet?

"There's bound to be plenty of supplies in the jet," she suggests, exhausted. "Stocks of water bottles. Alcohol, and some food to last us a couple of days. Why don't we try to get into the jet first?" Her mind spins thoughtfully. "Although the jet is barely being securely supported up there by that tree, it might still manage to hold all of my added weight. I could climb up the tree, get inside, get a few things we need. It would be the quickest way to get what we need? That's a good start, right?"

"Oh, hardly. I don't believe that to be a good idea at all. The risk outweighs the benefits. Getting into that jet in order to get supplies isn't worth it. Although suspended in the air several good meters, I don't like the chances of it still holding with your one-hundred-and-twenty pound weight. It's a risk we might as well not bother taking. What we are better off doing, is working with what we have here right now on the island. It's natural resources." Liz is hardly surprised by Red's easily-found pragmatism . If anyone knows better than anyone else anything about coming out of a sticky predicament alive, it would be Reddington.

Reddington's goal of finding a water source inland sounds better than any vague sort of plan Liz had conceived in her mind.

"Okay," she mutters, surrendering. "Our first goal is to find water." Forcing herself to keep her emotions in check, she attempts to stand. A stab of searing pain shoots through her ankle when she applies pressure on it while standing. She cringes, gripping onto Red's forearm with her hand without thinking. He feels hot, yet Liz finds its a relief, clinging onto another human being.

"How's the ankle faring?" he asks, noticing her discomfort.

She has to physically force her fingers to uncurl from his forearm, moving her hand away. "I have no idea what I did to it, but it hurts when I walk. It's nothing I can't learn to deal with, though."

"We've got a long walk ahead of us, Lizzie. The further inland we go, the better our chances of finding a water source."

"All right. Let's do this, then."

The first five minutes of walking is the hardest for Liz. It's sheer agony; Combined with the heat and being in direct exposure of the sunlight, she already feels her willpower starting to crumble. Something is seriously wrong with her ankle, and walking only just serves to aggravate it. She keeps her eyes on nothing else but a damp spot on the back of Red's white shirt as he limps ahead of her, the movement of even his legs slow and dragging.

Now and then, Red will stop and turn to look back at her, as if reassuring himself that she's following closely behind. Where the hell else can she possibly get to, though? They were stuck on an island together, surrounded by water. The options were kind of limited, weren't they?

She realizes something that ultimately pisses her off: She can't fog him off, if he says something not to her liking. She can't tell him to 'go to hell' or walk out on him when she is upset or irritated. They were stranded, stuck on an island together. Liz had no choice but to put up with him and set aside their differences. It was going to prove tough, she believed. Possibly even tougher than them actually surviving this.

"Has this happened to you before?" she calls loudly, panting heavily. Away from the shore, they have come into a bush area; Logs and branches scattered on the ground, sand mingled with dark dirt covering the land.

Red turns back to face her. "What's that?" His voice is ragged, breathless. Their walking has seemed to have thoroughly exhausted the both of them.

"Being stuck on a deserted island like this?" She comes to stop right in front of him and Liz takes the moment to put both hands on her knees, trying to get her breath to catch up with her. "You seem as if you know perfectly well what you're doing in this situation?"

"No." She can't seem to stop staring when Red pulls a long handkerchief from in his left trouser pocket, using the cloth to start dabbing around his glistening forehead and around his lips. There's something strangely fascinating about it, the way he does it. Liz puts it down to simply dehydration and fatigue wrecking havoc on her state of mind. "It's simply called improvisation."

"Oh, I'm sure that's exactly what it is. You sure you weren't ever a Boy Scout back in the day, Red?"

Then they hear it. A constant, peaceful stream.

Unsure of where the sudden strength that rises within her comes from, Liz gets to moving again hurriedly, brushing past Red quickly. She listens carefully, using her ears to gauge which way the sound of the running water is coming from. Tracking the sound of the river, Liz doesn't even realize she has found the source until her shoes plunge into an ice-cold, shallow pool of water, making sploshing sounds.

"Oh, thank God," she says gleefully. It's better than she imagined possible. "Red?" Losing herself, she kneels down, dangling her hands into the refreshingly cool water, surprising herself by how hard she is laughing, despite everything. Although it couldn't have been barely an hour since the crash, its like a message, a good sign. "Water! We have water!"

 _At least dying of dehydration wasn't in the cards for them now._

She cups her hands, splashing water over her sore nose, and feels instant relief. She sighs heavily, then cups her hands again, slurping handful after handful of water in greedily to re-hydrate herself. The sounds of Red's shoes scuffling against a few loose rocks warn Liz of his approach. As she turns to look at him over her shoulder, grinning happily at source of the water they've managed to find in such little time, what she sees there on his face makes her heart stop for a single second in dread.

His green eyes are on something above the neck of her shirt, anxious and gleaming; lips slightly parted and pinched. Liz recognizes that look; It's the look Red has when something bad is impending. Her heart clenches.

"What is it?" she asks, confused. "Well, at least we know for certain now that we're not gonna die of-"

"- Ssh," Red cuts her off brusquely, slowly treading carefully closer. "Keep quiet for a moment and stay still, Lizzie." She hears the intone of an urgent command in his low, gravelly voice. Her muscles stiffen and tense at the sound.

Liz swallows dryly against a building lump in her throat, her eyes still on nothing else but his face. He inches closer to her, standing directly behind her, eyes still on that spot inches above the neck of her shirt. This couldn't be for anything good, but dutifully, she tries to keep still as possible, her heart hammering anxiously in her ears.

Faster than she can comprehend it, Red's hand whips out, his warm fingers brush against the crease in her neck rather intimately, and, before she can even begin to feel flustered over the contact, Liz feels an oddly disturbing sensation of something being plucked away off of her. Red holds that something in his hand and she only fully understands when he leans down to show her it, opening up his hand.

It's a black, slimy and thickly grotesque leech.

"Ugh," she grunts in disgust, curling her lips back. "Thanks. I... I didn't even feel it on me." Disgusted, she throws her hands into the stream, cupping ice-cold water and frantically throwing it over and around her neck area.

"They like moist, extreme humidity areas," Red says informatively, and when she turns to look up at him in gratitude, she spots another leech sucking on the side of his neck, roughly about in the exact place she had stabbed him in the carotid artery all that time ago with a ballpoint pen.

Every time she so much as even looks at Red, usually she could see the small circular scar there, one she had to admit that she was pretty damn proud of in giving him. Though she isn't sure her reason why into doing it, she pretends not to take notice of the gross leech on him, sipping another mouthful of water instead; a satisfied smirk playing on the corners of her mouth.

Less than half a minute later, Red lets her know he has discovered it feasting on his blood himself by the panicked yipping noise he gives out from behind her.

 **Well, how was this one? Lol. Hope you enjoyed it and are liking the story so far? Please review and feel free to let me know your thoughts. :)**


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